Last February, freelancing at home at all hours of the day or night, constantly staring at a computer screen, I was growing pretty tired of the routine of pixel-pushing. I wanted to challenge myself to think differently, off the screen on a more physical medium. With that, I gave myself a 30-day challenge, posting to Instagram every day to keep myself accountable.

I faced several obstacles along the way:

self-doubt: "Why am I doing this again?" "Do I suck?" "Do my friends hate me for posting everyday for a month?" "Of all the things I could paint on God's good earth, why am I painting a fish?"

time: even though my schedule was flexible due to my freelancing jobs, painting one piece everyday for a month was a lot more difficult than I thought.

diversity of subject matter: I'll admit, I lean towards landscape scenes and the ocean definitely has a hold over me, but I attempted to challenge myself with other content as much as possible.

acceptance of imperfection: as a graphic designer, improvement is always a possibility and is as simple as a Command-Z hot key; but as an artist, one wrong, permanent brush stroke and you either start over or accept the movement for what it is.

At the end of the challenge, since there was so much interest in the project from friends and family, I ended up scanning and reproducing all 30 pieces at a local print shop and selling almost all my originals plus several of my reproductions. This challenge set in motion my new business, Hum Studios; allowed me to connect with other artists on Instagram, both near and far; and also established itself as a seemingly never-ending passion project.

Feel free to check out the rest of the project on my personal Instagram, searching with the tag #30daysofwatercolorchallenge